The science of legislation is like that of medicine in one respect: that it is far more easy to point out what will do harm than what will do good.

If you are under obligations to many, it is prudent to postpone the recompensing of one, until it be in your power to remunerate all; otherwise you will make more enemies by what you give, than by what you withhold.

There are many women who have never intrigued, and many men who have never gamed; but those who have done either but once are very extraordinary animals.

Literature has her quacks no less than medicine, and they are divided into two classes; those who have erudition without genius, and those who have volubility without depth; we shall get second-hand sense from the one, and original nonsense from the other.

There are two metals, one of which is omnipotent in the cabinet, and the other in the camp--gold and iron. He that knows how to apply them both may indeed attain the highest station.

If you cannot avoid a quarrel with a blackguard, let your lawyer manage it, rather than yourself. No man sweeps his own chimney, but employs a chimney-sweeper, who has no objection to dirty work, because it is his trade.

Time ... advances like the slowest tide, but retreats like the swiftest torrent.